The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

Peter, John and Warren:

Thanks for the interesting comments. They are very encouraging. 
Peter, I am glad that works for you. The AN1X is particularly good at 
getting interesting nasal/or slightly discordant but evocative  
sustained sounds. You can pitch an oscillator really high in the 
overtone series and detune it to give the character you want, and 
since you have the oscillator edge parameter, it gives you precise 
control over how much of that overtone's overtones you have in the 
patch. 

Peter, by technique I am going to assume you mean control of the 
sound, rather than keyboard technique, since that is covered by all 
the piano resources. Interestingly I picked up february's Electronic 
Musician which is something I never do. They have an excellent 
article by Pat Martirano on the subject of emulative playing. But 
what the article is really good for, is ideas about using the 
controllers (ribbons, aftertouch, etc) to create evocative 
expressions with the synth. It's only in the last page or so that he 
talks about this, but he packs in a number of ideas. I am going to 
enjoy trying them out. 

<soapbox on> You know us synth players are using about 10% of the 
resources available to us in terms of expression. Despite all the 
possibilities we typically only use portamento, filter sweeps and 
tremolo. I think that's going to change, as the modulation matrixes 
have become common over the last 3 years and people are beginning to 
explore the possibilities. The weak link is now the lack of time. To 
internalize and play a certain modulation routing scheme takes a lot 
of practice and one has to commit a certain amount of time to 
become "natural" with a particular set of expressions. Ideally, we 
should get to the point where the muscles are obeying the 
subconscious, just like on a violin or piano. Of course, the synth 
manufacturers give us some new toy every year and we tend to give up 
on embracing the technique of any one toy. :) <soapbox off>

Warren, I am into micro tuning as well. It's neat to find people with 
similar interests. I have enjoyed a lot of Wendy Carlos' music, 
including a jewel of a CD called Beauty in the Beast, which employs 
micro tuning heavily. I'll take some time to read the resources you 
have. I have a Roland JV synth, and a guy called Benjamin Tubb put 
together the settings for the main tuning schemes. Occasionally, I'll 
visit his web site and try something new out. I agree that being "out 
of tune" is very important to being evocative. It's hard to find 
those features combined with a good programming architecture like the 
AN1X unless you pony up for a Kurzweil. Or maybe I should try out an 
ESQ. Does it have polyphonic aftertouch by any chance?

Cheers,

Jerry